The transmission of flight number eight

This is Lieutenant Kent Allison beginning aural log of stellar modal conversion device test number eight. I have been instructed to maintain a
continual voice monolog of my thoughts and observations for the duration of this test. It is now t-minus one hour, eleven minutes, and eight seconds
to conversion time.

This test is the fourth manned experimental launch of the stellar modal conversion device developed by Alliance Space Agency. The official record of
this test is coded as follows, device serial beta point niner-seven, capsule series is Hawkings-three, and accelerated transponder is enabled for this
mission.

-01:08:17

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say.

-01:06:45

I guest I should point out that this monolog is being recorded both locally here in the cockpit, and being transmitted on two external channels. One
channel is an optical link via laser to the launch control about 10 clicks away, and the other is through UHF relay.

The idea is that if one or two channels are lost, there will be one surviving channel.

(untranslatable)

Surviving. Shouldn't have said that.

-01:01:52

Yeah.

(untranslatable)

This is test number eight. No one knows the results of the first seven tests because, well, there are no results.

The first four tests were robotic drones with no trace of the capsules in the target recovery zone. The next two tests were two-man crews that also
were unrecovered. Lucky number seven was a three-man crew, one great pilot and two brilliant physicists. It was supposed to be a grand achievement.
Everyone was so certain the adjustments would bring success, all hope rode on number seven.

(untranslatable)

Number eight is a one-man crew -- me.

-00:58:34

I'm not a brilliant physicist nor a great pilot, just a capable person who knows enough to talk about what he sees out the window. The last flight
had a laser link, and they caught a few words after conversion, garbled but clear. They were "Stop now, now", then nothing.

So with the accelerated transponder, and the UHF link, we hope to get a few more clues as to why the other tests have failed.

(untranslatable)

Damn protocol. I'm about to die.

-00:52:21

I'm an expendable guinea pig. A talking monkey whose final words will be examined to help the chances of flight test nine to succeed.

I shouldn't complain, I volunteered. Things are desperate. We need this, and we need it bad.

--- chapter two---

Ever since the last attack, A.S.A. has been scrambling to mount some kind of offensive capability. There can't be any offense if you never are in a
position to attack. They really caught us by surprise.

Maybe in the future they'll name a school after me. Test Pilot Eight Elementary School... yeah, sounds about right.

-00:43:18

Not much to say really. I'm just waiting for the tugs to get to their safe distance and the countdown to reach zero. I wish this damn capsule had
more windows, I can't even see earth, much less the moon.

Thoughts and observations you want huh? Okay, here's a thought, stellar modal conversion device is a crock. for the past two years, all effort,
funding and research has gone into this one technology as the only thing that can possibly save the whole human race. What a mistake... we're
doomed.

-00:41:48

Stellar human termination device is more like it.

-00:34:51

Damn, I don't want to die. I wonder what went wrong with the last flights. Flight seven was supposed to be the one that worked. One minute they're
not far from the Moon, a few minutes later, just outside the orbit of Mars. Simple, right.

Right... so simple, engage a modal trion field, initiate conversion of all matter within that field to tachyons, wait a couple seconds, convert all
tachon matter back to normal mode one matter. They had it licked they said. Everything on complete automatic, calculations checked and rechecked,
timing was perfect, and everyone smiled. Then the silence. Oh, except "Stop now, now".

Why did they want to stop? And why couldn't they?

-00:31:18

And the voice, it was strained, as if something were squeezing the life out of them.

Not two days later, the next attack came. The entire Armstrong Complex destroyed. Over ten thousand people killed.

[TEE-MINUS THIRTY MINUTES TO CONVERSION]

Damn that was loud.

This isn't like the old earth launches of a hundred years ago. No radio channels full of hopeful chatter, no multiple checks of systems and flight
crews. This is just me, and a frantic planet watching in silence.

Tachyons. Trion fields. No one thought much of these things three years ago, now they are the last hope of humanity. And the last seven hopes went up
in flames. I wonder how many more chances we have?

What went wrong? What failed? And more important... did they actually change anything other than the communications link?

--- chapter three ---

-00:28:49

Let's think here... what is different about this test?

I'm sitting in the same conversion zone as flight seven, fifteen-hundred kilometers out from the Moon's orbit, pointing in the general direction of
Saturn, and drifting at about 10 kilometer a second.

The capture zone is Deep Sentry Seven, three point two light minutes away roughly in the orbit of Mars.

Conversion is automatically controlled, trion coils fire up, all matter is converted to tachyons, current speed is added to the speed of light, and I
speed toward the capture zone at 299,802 kilometers a second. Exactly 185.7894 seconds later, trion coils reverse, tachyons are converted back to
normal mode matter.

Everything is exactly the same as flight seven. Of course, I know this, I've known this for the past two weeks. I just have to have something to say,
after all, I'm no scientist, what am I even bothering with these thoughts for?

Trimodal matter. What if the theories are wrong? Only brief short tests of the trion conversions have ever succeeded. And we jump from that to the
desperate hope of stuffing pilots in capsules and hoping it all works?

-00:21:09

Almost twenty minutes until I die... or worse. Do you hear this everyone? I've gone nuts. The once highly thought-of and promising Lieutenant in the
Joint Forces Stellar Navy, now reduced to babbling incoherently about physics and his eventual demise. I know you're listening Captain Terry, I...

[TEE-MINUS TWENTY MINUTES TO CONVERSION]

Damn! Where's the volume control?

Right, settle down... I know where the volume is, I've been trained for this.

Damn is hot in here. Is there enough air for this trip? Seems hotter than when I started.

"Stop now, now" is what they said. Why did they say that? They said it right away. Why? What the [--- expletive deleted ---].

They must have been going too fast... but how? The conversion to tachyons is... I can't remember. The formulas, what were they again. [--- expletive
deleted ---] it, what do I know. Stop this Kent, you're only driving yourself crazy.

Crazy? [--- expletive deleted ---], what does it matter? I'm about to die, who cares about...

(untranslatable)
(untranslatable)
(untranslatable)

-00:18:12

Okay. Sorry people. This is important and I got out of control. I'm okay now, I volunteered for this, I know. You need to know what goes wrong and
when, the kind of stuff that automatic telemetry just can't provide. Okay. I'm alright. I can do this. We have to be able to respond to the attacks.
It's up to me to provide you with the data you need to eventually make this work and save humanity.

Okay.

(untranslatable)

I can do this.

"Stop now, now." I can't stop thinking about what they meant. Something happened too fast for them to respond to, and now they're dead, capsule
lost, no other data other than scrambled nonsense telemetry.

Wait a minute, no...

(untranslatable)

It can't be that simple.

--- chapter four---

Or can it... let me think.

[--- expletive deleted ---]

What was that crap about kinetic energy in the stellar modal review. Who was the speaker? Damn, I can't remember... some theoretical physicist, not
on the A.S.A. payroll.

(untranslatable)
[--- expletive deleted ---]

He had the only dissenting opinion of the stellar modal conversion process... and it was something about kinetic energy converting also.

(untranslatable)

I can't think.

-00:14:27

I should just settle down and accept my role. A voice on a tape. Maybe someone to say the next two or three words we should have heard after, "stop
now, now".

That might be enough. Someday they talk about Kent and what he said. His last words saved humanity. I suppose that's not a bad way to go.

I wish I could see earth.

-00:11:49

I'm calm now. I'm better. My legacy to the future will be rational and level-headed.

Stop. Now, now.

Stop. Now, now.

What caused that? What did they see? Was it kinetic conversion? Does the trion field cause a conversion of energy? Nah, it can't. It's only
converting matter into the hyper-state, one step before anti-matter.

Hyper-state. Tachyons, right? Or rather, what we thought were tachyons -- always traveling faster than light. Faster. Always. Inverse ratio of mass --
that's how Einstein was still correct.

Stationary? Wait... what was I thinking? What the hell was so simple a few minutes ago? Kinetic energy! Right.

Inverse ratio... wait a minute... damn, (untranslatable) times did he say that? Something about energy and hyper-state.

(untranslatable)

I got it... he made sense. But the A.S.A. stellar dynamics planners thought he was all wrong. They targeted 10 kilometers per second, but he said it
was much too slow. What did that mean again? He said it would result in nearly terminal tachyon velocity... T.T.V.

What's my velocity... hard to tell... everything is blurry... I can't see. It looks like just over 4 million kilometers a second... but I can't
tell if that's a four or a nine... If it's four [--- expletive deleted ---] how long until the capture zone? [--- expletive deleted ---] 15
seconds... gotta convert now! Stop!

[--- expletive deleted ---]

[CONVERSION TO NORMAL-MODE COMPLETE]

[--- expletive deleted ---]

I went too far.

01:14:28

I can't tell where I am... the stellar triangulation isn't giving me anything... the antenna must have taken some damage.

Well... if anyone receives this, hitting the thrusters didn't--

Lieutenant Alison, this is capture-seven we have you just over 2 million kilometers past the capture zone. Break out your rations, hang-tight, and
we'll see you in about two days. Copy?

(This is a reconstruction of a story that was bought by Omni in 1983, then never published when a new editor came on and changed the fiction schedule.
I can't find my original copy, so I'm rebuilding from memory.)

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